One of my favorite recent discoveries in the free will literature is Nahmias and Murray's series of studies on what they call 'bypassing,' and I wanted to see whether people might have some ideas about how to explain their results.
To give just one example, in one of their elegant experiments, participants were given a description of a universe ('Universe A') in which everything that happens is completely caused by something that happened earlier. Participants were then asked whether they agreed or disagreed with a series of statements:
In Universe A, what a person believes has no effect on what they end up being caused to do.
In Universe A, what a person wants has no effect on what they end up being caused to do.
In Universe A, a person’s decisions have no effect on what they end up being caused to do.
Surprisingly enough, participants tended to agree with these statements. This is a very puzzling response. If everything in the universe is caused by something that happened before, it seems that people's actions could easily be caused by their beliefs, desires and decisions. But people seem to reject that view. Why might they be doing this?
The question will surely be a controversial one, but my hunch is that the Nahmias and Murray experiments are showing us something deep and important about how people understand human action. For example, it might be that people see a fundamental distinction between being caused to do something and choosing to do it on the basis of reasons. Then, if they hear that a behavior was completely caused, they immediately conclude that it could not have been the result of a decision based on beliefs and desires.
Recent Comments